I don't why some of those OffSet photos are premium going for $249 minimum while our photos only get $0.10 90% of the times. 

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/man?image_type=photo

OffSet photos on this particular keyword search actually look inferior to most other photos.

Because offset is a different agency (run by Shutterstock) with different prices and more selective with whom they allow in.

Does that mean the quality is better of the images on Shutterstock? Probably not.  Many good photographers might simply never have applied to them. Or they applied in the past were rejected and have improved a lot. At the beginning offset used to be "invite only" even.

I think the only real difference between offset and shutterstock is that on offset you can expect a certain quality, while on shutterstock every cell-phone snapshot crap gets approved. This means that you can only find good photos on offset, but on shuttersock you can find images just as good or even better - but also all the crap.
From a customers point of view I do not see much use in browsing the SS gallery and buying offset photos there. To me it only makes sense to go directly to the offset gallery and pay higher prices there just for the luxury of not having to browse through hundreds of medicore cell phone snap shots.

Usually, successful images on an agency end up with a high ranking (and therefore there is not a lot to wade through on search results), and usually those successful images are "good". I always found it hard to understand the ridiculous pricing difference between these collections for what many times is the same quality of image in the "cheap seats". Is the curation really worth what must be $10000's per year?

Quote from: wds on October 02, 2023, 16:41

Usually, successful images on an agency end up with a high ranking (and therefore there is not a lot to wade through on search results), and usually those successful images are "good". I always found it hard to understand the ridiculous pricing difference between these collections for what many times is the same quality of image in the "cheap seats". Is the curation really worth what must be $10000's per year?

Exactly.  Those OffSet photos showing up on top pages aren't any better than other $0.10 cheap sub photos.  It just doesn't make sense.

But it makes money.

Lots of producers only create content for those highly priced, high end collections.

Getting into the club is the problem.